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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'A somewhat feminine voice',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/04/06.jpg" alt="The lab building" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="vasectomy">
	<h2>Vasectomy</h2>
	<p>
		I just laid in bed when I woke up, stretching a bit, then curling back up.
		It&apos;s been a long week and a half, and I&apos;m really tired.
		Besides, I had the time to rest.
		I was visiting my father at noon, but had nothing else to do today besides go to work and read the General Conference transcript, neither of which I could do just yet anyway.
		I didn&apos;t need to rush out of bed.
		But with a start, I realised that I&apos;d forgotten an important errand.
		I had no choice but to head back to Eugene.
	</p>
	<p>
		At the beginning of next month, I need to get my seamen analysed to be sure the vasectomy was successful.
		I&apos;ll be racing against the clock, too.
		I&apos;m expected to ejaculate into a special cup, then bring the cup to the lab in under an hour.
		And as far as I know, the sooner the better.
		I&apos;ll have no time to wander and search.
		I&apos;ll need to know right where I&apos;m going.
		And that means I&apos;ve got to scout out the place ahead of time, so I know exactly where I&apos;m headed.
		While school&apos;s not in session is exactly the time I need to do the scouting.
	</p>
	<p>
		On the way there, my tire went flat.
		Again.
		Seriously!?
		I&apos;ve been pretty good about bringing my tire pump whenever I go to Eugene, but I was in a rush today, as I needed to be sure to be back in time to visit my father.
		So I forgot the pump.
		And even if I&apos;d remembered, I was hoping to cram the two trips into one, meeting with my father a little early, just so I wouldn&apos;t have to bike as far.
		He&apos;d promised me his old blender now that he&apos;s got a new one, so I needed the space in my backpack for the blender.
		So I would have probably intentionally left the pump behind to save space in my backpack.
		I was almost to the lab, so I still make it in under half an hour; well within the one-hour time frame.
		Assuming I&apos;m prepared for whatever goes wrong on the real run, I&apos;ll make it in time when the time comes.
		However, walking home took me about an hour and forty minutes.
		I lost a lot of time, and I would have much rather used that time to rest, or even to write up my journal entry.
		I ended up having to finish up this journal entry on my breaks at work.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m not sure why I keep getting all these punctured inner tubes as of late.
		There&apos;s no visible damage on the tires, so I don&apos;t think anything&apos;s poking through them.
		This time, I took the time to check out exactly where the hole is before removing the tube from the tire, and found the hole was on the tire side (as opposed to the rim side) and that there&apos;s nothing in the tire at that spot.
		Yet there&apos;s still that hole.
		I don&apos;t know what could be causing these holes.
	</p>
	<p>
		The next available inner tube is on the blue bike that won&apos;t shift gears properly.
		I don&apos;t know why, but I really didn&apos;t want to take apart the blue bike to get at the tube, but the blue bike has the only two remaining tubes I&apos;ve got.
		Maybe I&apos;m just too tired after all this biking around.
		I figured I could just ride the janky blue bike for now until I get all my tubes patched.
		I should probably get those patched before the break ends too.
		However, I quickly remembered that the blue bike is - well, janky.
		Being unable to reach the top gear, peddling is way too much effort, especially in my overly-tired state right now.
		My best option was to diagnose and attempt to fix the bike.
		I was too physically tired to deal with wrestling another wheel off, but while I&apos;ve been overexerting myself physically, my brain&apos;s been underutilised.
		It&apos;s still got the strength to keep going, so I&apos;d try to solve the puzzle of the bike&apos;s issue rather than work my muscles some more.
	</p>
	<p>
		I thought I found the problem.
		The gear-shifting line wasn&apos;t pulled as tight as it should be.
		It turns out I don&apos;t have the necessary tools to take the bolt off and fix that.
		So I looked at other options.
		It turns out there&apos;s a pair of screws that can be tightened and loosened to adjust where the gear-shifter sits.
		Even setting that as far as it can go wasn&apos;t enough.
		Eventually, I made the incorrect tools work for me, and I got the like adjusted.
		I thought I&apos;d fixed the bike, but there was no time for a test ride.
		I needed to get to my father&apos;s place, so the bike would have to work as it was.
		What I found is that the bike not only shifts into the top peddle gear without my having to dismount and manually move the chain by hand, but also rides without the chain rubbing where it shouldn&apos;t while the bike is in said gear.
		The downside is that the bike now can&apos;t shift into the bottom gear, and instead of being stuck in the bottom and middle gear, is now stuck in the middle and top gear.
		I can live with that.
		I shift the wheel gear, but I always keep the peddle gear in top gear.
		The bike might be fully fixable with some tuning of those screws I mentioned before.
		However, I don&apos;t think that it is.
		I think the gear shifter may simply be the wrong size for the bike.
		I&apos;ll have to see if I can fix it later, just to know if it can be fixed, but that&apos;ll need to wait until I&apos;m not exhausted.
		I don&apos;t use the bottom gear, so there&apos;s no rush in attempting to restore access to it.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="father">
	<h2>Gifts from my father</h2>
	<p>
		My father and I spent about an hour just catching up.
		Before I had left though, I&apos;d been loaded down with various goods.
		My father is very much like Summer, in that regard.
		He keeps a bunch of things he doesn&apos;t have a use for, and gives them to people who seem like they can use them.
	</p>
	<p>
		In addition to the blender I&apos;d come to retrieve, he first offered me a pair of coats.
		Apparently, they&apos;d been given to him, and the person that&apos;d offered them to him insisted that if he take one, he had to take all three of the coats they didn&apos;t want.
		So that left him with two he didn&apos;t want.
		So he made about the same deal to me, but I only needed to take the two.
		They&apos;re water-resistant and have no logos on the outside, a combination I have a lot of use for.
		I had a water-resistant one, but due to the logo on it, I don&apos;t feel like I can wear it out in public, so I don&apos;t wear it at all.
		Instead, I&apos;ve just been getting soaked in the rain, which can be a bit annoying.
		I&apos;ve been meaning to find something to cover the logo with, but let&apos;s face it: I&apos;ve had the coat a year or two and haven&apos;t done anything with it yet.
		The chances I&apos;ll actually get to making it usable any time soon are slim.
		Having a usable water-resistant coat will be awesome, and having a single back-up can&apos;t hurt.
	</p>
	<p>
		He also gave me a headset.
		It might come in handy once I have a mobile again.
		<strong>*If*</strong> I get a new mobile.
		I&apos;m still on the fence about it.
		Additionally, he gave me an old tablet.
		can I make it do anything useful?
		Not sure.
		It may be too locked-down to function for anything practical.
		If not, I can get scriptures downloaded to it so I don&apos;t have to lug my laptop to places such as church, and might even be able to use it at work for some light reading on my breaks.
	</p>
	<p>
		The final thing he offered me was a nanny cam that looks like a teddy bear.
		He probably meant it jokingly, but a customer of his had given it to him years ago and he&apos;s never had a use for it.
		It always feels creepy when my mother&apos;s been over while I&apos;m gone.
		Like, it was creepy from the start, not just now that we&apos;re not really speaking.
		I feel like my home isn&apos;t really my home, y&apos;know?
		So I almost always look for clues of her presence when I get home.
		Sometimes stuff that wasn&apos;t there before will show up.
		I keep the toilet seat down but the lid up, while she almost always puts the lid down too.
		She leaves the shower curtain partly closed, while I open it all the way.
		Sometimes she&apos;ll change out her towel to wash it too.
		But sometimes, I forget to check for signs and notice them later.
		Then I get really creeped out.
		I&apos;m not sure if this camera will work, but it&apos;s worth a try.
		Unfortunately, I wasn&apos;t prepared for such a load, and had no space left in my backpack for the camera.
		I&apos;ll need to pick it up at a later time.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="prayer">
	<h2>Prayer impressions log</h2>
	<p>
		My morning prayer ended up postponed until afternoon, just before I got ready for work.
		I talked about my hard day, and said that I can handle the stress because I have my journal.
		I also discussed how the censorship at the school is worse, as it prevents me from freely writing, making my hardships worse and my good times bad.
		And finally, I once more asked that the censorship please be lifted.
		All I got in response was images of flowers and strange shapes floating through my mind.
	</p>
	<p>
		After work, I prayed about how I&apos;m exhausted, but that it didn&apos;t have to be this way.
		If the censorship was lifted, I&apos;d feel better and I&apos;d be much more productive while school is in session.
		I&apos;d be able to run my larger errands almost as they came up, so I wouldn&apos;t need to cram them all into the small spaces between terms.
		After explaining my problem once more, I made my usual promise that if the censorship were ended, I&apos;d double down on my scripture study and get two book read per week instead of the current one book per week.
		The only response seemed to be images of the dip cups from work and images of my colourful fingernails.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="voice">
	<h2>My voice</h2>
	<p>
		One of my neighbours was out when I got home, so we struck up a conversation, and talked a bit past midnight.
		My vocal lessons came up, and they said I didn&apos;t need them because my voice is already feminine.
		I disagree.
		When people hear me speak, even without seeing my face, they usually assume I&apos;m a man.
		Though now that I write this, I guess I&apos;ve been mistaken as a woman too, on rare occasions.
		Anyway, I think this bodes well.
		I mean, some transwomen aren&apos;t able to achieve a convincingly feminine voice without surgery because their vocal cords don&apos;t have the right range of sounds they can make.
		My understanding is that this is rare, and most transwomen can do it with practice and vocal therapy alone.
		If I&apos;m already close, there should be no reason why I can&apos;t pull off a feminine voice.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
